The Road to Jonestown

by Jeff Guinn

  July brought additional problems. Gordon Lindsay, a writer for the National Enquirer tabloid, arrived in Guyana to research what would certainly be a titillating feature on Jones and Jonestown. He received no cooperation from the Temple office in Georgetown and never made it to Jonestown before being expelled from the country by Guyanese officials. But he’d stayed long enough for Jones to feel certain that a story would still be written—in particular, Jones believed that Lindsay had chartered a plane to fly over the settlement and take photographs. He wanted the story quashed, but was uncertain how to proceed. A stern warning from Charles Garry wouldn’t work—the National Enquirer thrived on publicity from lawsuits.

  Bonny Mann forwarded to Jones “with compliments” a letter he’d received from American Clare Bouquet, whose adult son Brian was a Jonestown settler. Mrs. Bouquet wrote to the Guyanese ambassador to the United States that everyone living in Jonestown was in danger. She enclosed a copy of the story about Debbie Layton from the San Francisco Chronicle. The letter was taken by Jones and Charles Garry to mean that Concerned Relatives must be widening their outreach to Guyanese and U.S. officials. It might be only a matter of time before Guyana’s leaders succumbed to increasing American pressure. Relocation to Russia seemed the only viable option, but every time Sharon Amos met with Timofeyev in Georgetown, the Russian had a new excuse for the lack of progress. His latest claim was that more information was needed, an exact list of all Jonestown settlers proposing to immigrate to his country, and their ages. Also, he’d heard rumors that Jim Jones was extremely ill—could the Jonestown leader even travel, let alone survive a new, rugged pioneer experience in Russia? That concern could have been alleviated by Jones personally visiting Timofeyev at his embassy, but Jones still felt certain he’d be arrested the moment he set foot outside Jonestown. Deputy Prime Minister Reid assured Jones this would not be the case, but Jones insisted that Reid put the promise in writing. Reid wouldn’t—he considered this a foolish request that reflected lack of trust on Jones’s part, which was true.

  A bit of good news—the Guyanese government agreed to approve the Jonestown school as meeting national requirements—was overshadowed by a new question of qualification. Guyanese officials notified Jones that Larry Schacht could not practice medicine in their country without first attending, and graduating from, a state-certified medical school. Beyond the necessity of Schacht’s services in Jonestown on a daily basis, he was integral to Jim Jones’s plans for an ultimate White Night, which might come anytime. Sending Schacht off to medical school was unthinkable. Jones and Schacht proposed to the Guyanese Ministry of Public Health that the settlement’s doctor be allowed to take correspondence courses. The matter was taken under government advisement—one more source of uncertainty and stress for Jones.

  Jones tried to ingratiate himself with the Burnham administration through the same tactic that had worked so well back in San Francisco. Burnham’s People’s National Congress (PNC), facing continued resistance from former prime minister Cheddi Jagan’s People’s Progressive Party (PPP), scheduled a July 10, 1978, national referendum that, if passed, would guarantee indefinitely the current PNC majority in Guyana’s parliament. Jones offered to make every Temple member in the country available as PNC campaign volunteers, and for several weeks before the election Temple members swarmed everywhere in Georgetown, passing out PNC leaflets and then, on election day, serving as poll watchers and vote counters. The PNC would have fixed the election even without Temple assistance, but the American volunteers still came in handy. The announced result was 97 percent for the PNC, ensuring that Burnham remained in control. One week later, Sharon Amos and Tim Carter met with Deputy Prime Minister Vibert Mingo. When they inquired about the Burnham administration’s position on Jonestown-related matters, he responded that with the referendum decided, “the policy involving Peoples Temple would have to come up,” a nebulous response that troubled Jones greatly. Amos tried to soothe her leader by explaining, “[Mingo] didn’t say this in a negative way.”

  Back in Jonestown, there were occasional flare-ups against Jones’s absolute control. One involved the continuing lack of meat. Jones expected everyone to accept the rations—good socialists ate what they were given. In some evening sessions he allowed settlers to offer comments on Jonestown life, and one night elderly Helen Snell complained that she wanted more meat, and refused to accept Jones’s explanation that it was too expensive. When Snell continued carping, Jones dramatically announced that from now on, whenever meat was served, he would give his own meager portion to her, although this sacrifice would undoubtedly cause additional damage to his already delicate health. As Jones hoped, there was a firestorm of protest from other settlers. For the sake of everyone, Dad needed his strength! Generous-hearted as he was, he could not risk his own life to gratify the greedy appetite of a selfish old woman. Peter Wotherspoon, whose genitals had once been pounded to near-pulp in San Francisco on Jones’s orders, settled the matter with his own offer, asking Jones to “please allow” him to give Snell his portions of meat instead “for the greater good of the Collective.” He asked Jones to forgive Snell for complaining: “her age” should excuse it. Jones grandly agreed.

  Without Jones’s permission, some of the young men in Jonestown began using a concrete slab as a basketball court; they hung makeshift baskets at both ends and played boisterous games after work and on the half days off Jones allowed on Sundays. Jones’s own grown sons participated as well as their friends, many of whom served as camp security guards. Jones had always eschewed the concept of Temple sports teams, particularly the possibility of them playing outside squads. Such competition, in his mind, was anti-socialist. When he ordered the games discontinued, Marceline intervened, arguing that the young men needed to have some fun. In fact, they should get uniforms and, as an organized team, play Guyanese squads in friendly exhibition games that would promote goodwill and demonstrate to the government that it was the Temple’s intent to integrate itself with the people of its host nation. Jones grudgingly agreed, and even allowed Sharon Amos to meet with Desmond Roberts, who oversaw many government-sponsored youth programs. Roberts decreed that Temple sports teams “could not participate in our national championships, but their basketball team could engage in exhibitions with our national team if they wished—that would be appropriate.”

  More meat with meals and a basketball team seemed like small concessions to the settlers, but loomed large with Jones. Any loss of control could eventually lead to total loss. The response when he offered to give up his meat portions to Helen Snell may have inspired his announcement on August 8 that he had terminal lung cancer. Jones said his goal was to live long enough “to give [new] leadership time to develop unselfishness, not to need recognition, and, least of all, to need appreciation.” Meanwhile, he would suffer, and his already limited life span would be further reduced any time anyone in Jonestown did something hurtful. Jones added that despite all the healings he’d once accomplished, he’d now “forgotten how.” He would try to remember, and then heal himself, but his concern for his people must take precedence.

  Most were horrified by the news. Marceline asked Carlton Goodlett to come to Jonestown at once and examine her husband. Larry Schacht had made the diagnosis but Marceline wanted a second opinion. Goodlett examined Jones and afterward he told him and Marceline that he found no evidence of cancer, or any evidence of other serious diseases. His best guess, since Jones refused to leave Jonestown for examination in a better-equipped hospital setting, was that the problem was a fungus infection of the lung, which could be treated with rest and antibiotics. Goodlett’s diagnosis was not shared with the rest of the settlers, or even with Jones’s sons. The Jonestown-wide belief remained that Dad was dying of cancer, and everyone must obey him in all things, at peril of worsening his condition. The possibility was raised of easing Jones’s burdens by establishing a triumvirate to run day-to-day activities: Harriet Tropp and Johnny Brown were obvious, along with Tish Leroy, who did som
e of the camp’s bookkeeping. Carolyn Layton and Maria Katsaris would remain in their roles as Jones’s chief aides. Nothing came of it—Jones, even if actually terminally ill, would never have surrendered any control.

  As one means of counteracting the Concerned Relatives’ claims that no visitors were allowed in Jonestown to see for themselves that family members there were well, in August 1978 Jones invited one. When Juanell Smart’s four children told her a year earlier that they wanted to go to Jonestown, her immediate reaction was to refuse permission: “But my mother was going to be there, and my uncle Jim McElvane. I thought, well, it’ll be primitive there, it’ll be too much for my kids and maybe if I let them live there for a while, they’ll be ready to come back. But they seemed to love it, and when I was asked if I wanted to go over and see them, I took three weeks’ leave from work and went to take a look. I was surprised, because when I got there, I didn’t see anything wrong with it.”

  Smart stayed two weeks. She ate with the settlers, went wherever in camp she pleased, and joined everyone else for Jones’s evening lectures in the pavilion: “He sometimes seemed a bit out of it, and I thought he might be on drugs. He didn’t talk about religion, at least that I heard. He talked about stuff back in the U.S., in San Francisco, some politics. I saw and heard nothing about any group suicide plans. One night, they put on a musical where lots of people sang and danced—it was a talent show. Poncho, my daughter Tanitra’s boyfriend, sang a song with a line about finding a special place, and I thought to myself, ‘Okay, that’s what they did.’ ” After a few days, the settlers warmed enough to Smart that they gossiped with her a bit. Some of them, too, wondered if Jones was using drugs. Terri Buford, who’d privately wanted to defect for some time, sufficiently trusted Smart to ask if she’d join her for a sip of Johnnie Walker Red—Buford had some hidden in her cottage. Smart was happy to oblige.

  “One night, they asked me what movie I’d like them to have, and my mother said to me, ‘Jim would like to see one that was a favorite of his,’ so I said, ‘Let’s see that.’ As soon as I did, my kids walked right away, but not before Tanitra said to me, ‘He always gets that one, we never get to see what we really want’. The last night I was there, Jim gave me a hug and said, ‘Don’t stay away too long.’ I thought it had been nice of them to invite me to come like that, but not long after I got home, I got a call from Marceline. She wanted me to call these other parents and tell them I’d seen their kids in Jonestown and everything there was fine. So I knew why they’d let me come, and I didn’t make any calls.”

  Jones’s fascination with Executive Action, a film about right-wing conspirators, led him to invite an additional guest—Donald Freed, one of the film’s writers. Jones wanted a book that explained every plot against the Temple. He thought Freed should write it. The author enjoyed his visit enough to agree that he’d look into potential conspiracies. Back in America, Freed asked a friend, attorney Mark Lane, to help. Lane, a former New York State legislator and author as well as a lawyer, was one of America’s most prominent conspiracy theorists. His book Rush to Judgment, a skeptical recounting of the official government investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy, had been a bestseller. Later, he served as an attorney for James Earl Ray, the accused assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. As with the murder of President Kennedy, Lane believed the U.S. government was in some way complicit in King’s death, or at least covering up some aspects of the crime. That earned him the respect of Jones, who, over the strong protests of Charles Garry, hired Lane to investigate any U.S. government plots against Peoples Temple. Garry and Lane each thought that the other was not only an impediment to professional efforts, but a rival for the publicity that both men relished.

  One of the first actions taken by Lane and Freed was to meet with private eye Joe Mazor. On September 5 in San Francisco, Mazor claimed Tim Stoen’s harassment of Jones and the Temple was being financed by hostile agencies, which included the CIA. He also swore that he’d enlisted Ugandan dictator Idi Amin as an intermediary with Prime Minister Burnham as Mazor worked on behalf of clients to “rescue” children from Jonestown. Freed and Lane passed the information along to Jones by radio—that night in the settlement pavilion, Jones triumphantly announced that he finally had proof Tim Stoen was a CIA agent: “We have cracked the other side.” Lane and Freed whisked Mazor to Jonestown so he could meet with Jones in person. Jones was staggered when Mazor claimed that he had led a band of armed mercenaries right up to the edge of the settlement with the plan of kidnapping Jonestown children and returning them to their families in the United States “Every word he said got [Jones] more worked up, and made a lot of [settlers] believe in a conspiracy,” Tim Carter remembers. “After Mazor, the guards were all told to keep their eyes on the tree line, because that’s where any attacks would come.”

  Although journalist Gordon Lindsay had been expelled from Guyana without ever seeing Jonestown, Lane said that the National Enquirer would soon publish a negative story. He offered to suppress it—Jones gladly agreed. Soon, Lane informed Jones that thanks to his intercession, the story would not run. “[Jones] had really gotten frustrated with Charles Garry,” Terri Buford says. “He didn’t think [Garry] had done enough about the lawsuits [against the Temple] and all the conspiracies [Jones] was sure were going on against him. Lane agreed with everything Jones said. That’s how he became the one [Jones] trusted most.”

  The end of September brought a wave of new bills—a $44,000 note due on a new tractor, $22,000 for aluminum to patch roofs, $16,000 for livestock feed, $3,500 for one hundred cartons of soap. Jones turned his attention to financial matters. His own estimate was that only three hundred Temple members remained in America, almost all of them in San Francisco—income from collection plates was negligible. He formed one committee to investigate other ways of earning money, and another to determine whether Jonestown could realistically be expected to become totally self-sustaining. Timofeyev was still stalling on the question of Jonestown’s relocation to Russia—Jones wanted that looked into, too, beginning with a list of preferable spots in the massive country.

  Even as conspiracies, Russia, and money were foremost on Jones’s mind, another ominous threat loomed. Though Jones didn’t know it, back in America Congressman Leo Ryan was finally preparing to make his long-promised inspection of Jonestown.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  UNRAVELING

  Early in September 1978, Leo Ryan discussed his investigative trip to Guyana with House Democratic majority leader Jim Wright. “It was his intention to bring more public scrutiny to Peoples Temple and Jim Jones,” Wright recalled. “[Ryan] did not expect, if he went to Guyana and then to Jonestown, that Jones would cooperate with him. He said that he believed the San Francisco newspapers would send reporters with him so that Jones’s intransigence would be documented, and he also hoped that the bigger newspapers like the Washington Post would do the same. Such coverage would increase the pressure on Jones to open Jonestown to visitors, and also to release anyone there who wanted to leave.”

  Ryan said that he would bring some members of Concerned Relatives with him, and also a few congressmen to demonstrate that concern about Jonestown wasn’t confined to his own Bay Area district. Another plus would be if their area newspapers sent reporters, too. But when Ryan began informally checking with colleagues to see who was willing to join him on the trip, there were no takers.

  “Leo’s reputation as an avid seeker of publicity worked against him,” Wright said. “The overall sense was that any other member [of Congress] going with him would play a supporting role so far as media coverage was concerned.”

  Still, the House of Representatives formally recognized Ryan’s trip as a congressional investigation, so that it had the imprimatur of official U.S. government business. Ryan anticipated a November trip. Though he didn’t immediately notify Peoples Temple of his plans, he did hold several meetings with Concerned Relatives, and asked the State Department to provide briefings. These
briefings did not go well. Department staffers were still concerned about giving the impression that a religious organization was being harassed and were not encouraging about Ryan’s trip. The congressman was displeased with what he considered a lack of cooperation and promised the Concerned Relatives that when he returned from Guyana he would “do something about it.”

  As Ryan fumed in Washington, Mark Lane made a triumphant return to Jonestown, where Jones’s effusive greeting grew even warmer when the lawyer-author agreed to continue ferreting out proof that the U.S. government was engaged in a conspiracy against Peoples Temple. Some in Jonestown noticed Lane paying extra attention to Terri Buford. Tim Carter sent Jones a note suggesting that Lane’s crush “could be used to our advantage, I feel.” Buford, looking for a safer way to defect than fleeing through the jungle, felt it could work to her advantage. She suggested to Jones that everything Lane learned would be shared by the lawyer with his staff. To keep the Temple’s secrets as closely held as possible, she should return to the United States with Lane and serve not only as his Temple liaison, but also as his personal secretary for whatever time it took for him to complete his investigation. Jones agreed, and when Lane went from Guyana to San Francisco, Buford was with him. She worked out of the Geary Boulevard temple offices, and plotted her eventual escape.